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The Affordable Care Act brought plenty of changes to the healthcare industry. Millions more Americans obtained insurance over a relatively short period of time, breaking down some barriers that previously limited access. This meant changes in staffing needs and labor allocations for healthcare providers, but that's not the only important new circumstance to arise from the ACA. The shift toward value-based care and the move away from a fee-for-service structure is another major difference, one providers are still working to fully embrace and master. For healthcare facilities that want to get a better handle on value-based care and the details of assessing total care costs on a per-patient level, big data and business intelligence software can play major roles.

Making complex processes more manageable
Determining the true price of specific procedures, tests and many other aspects of healthcare is a difficult process. Writing for the IBM Big Data & Analytics Hub, Jennifer Goforth Gregory discussed how providers need to understand and document the costs associated with care on the per-patient and per-condition levels, further complicating the process.

" Big data and predictive analytics help providers collect and standardize data."

Another factor to consider is the many data streams utilized by healthcare providers – especially larger health systems – to determine these costs. When there are multiple facilities, offices, specialists and recordkeeping systems in play, it can be difficult to gain complete visibility of the situation. The ability of different systems to share information and recognize the same formats for different pieces of information is often limited. Big data and predictive analytics play a major role by helping providers consistently collect and standardize their data, clarifying and completing what is often a complicated, difficult or unwieldy process. Implementing these powerful solutions also pays off by offering clearer, broader organizational insight and bolstering efforts to streamline operations and develop new business processes and improvements to existing ones.

Aviana has the experience and knowledge needed to help healthcare providers get on top of value-based care and ensure their approaches to it are as efficient and fruitful as possible. With an array of solutions available, including the powerful IBM Cognos suite, there are plenty of options for providers to select the system that offers them the best fit. To learn more about how Aviana brings the power of big data to the industry, visit our healthcare solution video series.